Wa datung, wa laman kundi resibong gusot.
Wasak na ang balat, warak na ang loob.
Walang panregalong laruan
sa kyut na pamangkin
Wit ke nanay, tatay, o kapatid
Waley mukhang haharap sa salamin

Bakit? 


(Ubo)


Walwal sa kawalan
Sumobra sa inom
Nawala sa kabangagan
Ubos ang likom
Lang araw Pasko na, anong solusyon?
Shet overtime na lang ata hanggang dulo ng taon.

– Rappler.com 

Artwork by Raffy de Guzman
Text by Nico Villarete

#FridayFeels is a cartoon series by the Rappler Creatives Team. Cathartic, light, but relevant, it's a welcome break from your heavy news feed! You can pitch illustration ideas by sending a message to the Rappler Facebook page.

As a sociologist, I have always been fascinated by social movements, especially right-wing ones where people regress to the state of collective behavior before humans evolved into a community.  Now, people have always told me that my fascination with right-wing movements could get me into trouble, since my informants, sensing my left-wing leanings, could end up beating me up, which almost happened twice when I was doing a PhD dissertation on the fascist group Patria y Libertad in Chile in the seventies.

The latest movement to catch my interest is the DDS, or “Die-hard Duterte Supporters,” whose informal chieftain is Mocha and whose best known cheerleader is Dick Gordon. DDS is, of course, a defiant word-play on the acronym DDS, or Davao Death Squad that Duterte commanded while mayor of Davao. 

I finally found someone from the DDS who was willing to talk, though I had to promise not to disclose his identity.  But I made no promise not to describe him.  He was around 45, overweight, balding, squat, and definitely middle class.  A subdued person at first glance, he came across as a wallflower type.

So I asked him what qualified a person to consider herself or himself a DDS. He said, "We have a common experience." Could he be more specific? He looked around, then told me a bit sheepishly, "We get an orgasm just seeing the President on TV." Talaga? I asked. "Yes, and we compared notes, and we all came to the same conclusion." And what is that? I persisted. He looked around again, and said, "That just seeing the President on TV is better than actual sex."

You don't say! "Yes," he continued. "And it's therapeutic, too. Some of us had erectile dysfunction disorder, some had long lost our sex drive, but when the man came into view, a miracle took place." And this was true of both men and women? "Yes, men and women, old and young, lovely and ugly, and this is what has made us so loyal to him. It's like Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead.  Tumindig ka, Lazaro.  At tumindig nga.  He made us sexually whole again." 

He continued: "And there's nothing like a DDS rally, with the President present. We have collective ecstasy, an orgy, the ultimate high but without actual sex." He reflected. "Well, it's not quite that. It's like we are all collectively making love to him, and through him to one another. You know, like the priest says at Mass, "through Him and in Him and with Him." I tried to recall the Latin from my prehistoric days as an altar boy, but he beat me to it: “Per ipsum, et cum ipso, et in ipso.” Wow!  Did this fellow graduate from that place on Katipunan? I asked myself.  

By now my mind is racing, trying to understand; I heard the same thing about the Nazi rallies, like the one in Nuremburg in 1936, where, some participants testified, the mass ecstasy ended in mass masturbation by thousands of participants, much of it involuntary, so that women were warned not to walk on the rally grounds for days afterwards to avoid accidental impregnation.  

"But there's something more," he volunteered. "The height of sexual pleasure is when he says 'I will kill you' to his enemies." You mean, his call to murder turns you on? He smiled, his face transfigured, no longer that of a wallflower, and said with a hint of menace, "Now you know why we call ourselves the DDS."  Thank you, I said, and hurriedly left.

After the interview, I pulled up a dog-eared book that I had not read in years, Wilhelm Reich’s Mass Psychology of Fascism.  Was Reich right?  That fascism is a political movement rooted in sexual repression and deep feelings of sexual inadequacy, and that the fascist head honcho is the one who successfully taps into that and converts that pent-up energy into murderous rage?

If he’s right, then we’re in real trouble in this Catholic convent that passes for a country. – Rappler.com

Aside from occasionally writing satirical fiction, Walden Bello teaches sociology.  As a member of the House of Representatives from 2009-2015, he made the only recorded resignation-on-principle in the history of Congress owing to principled differences with former President Benigno Aquino III.  His latest non-fictional study is “Counterrevolution, the Countryside, and the Middle Classes,” which appears in the January 2018 issue of the Journal of Peasant Studies.

How far has Rodrigo Duterte taken us down the road to authoritarianism? As phrased, the question, asked widely these days, denotes authoritarianism as a destination. That is in fact what it was for us old enough to have been there. 

We found ourselves there suddenly, delivered like a child snatched and carried away in its sleep. As we had done all our lives, we went to bed free men and women, but awoke tyrannized, and would remain tyrannized for 14 years.

Our theft in the night was Ferdinand Marcos. He was a consummate plotter, and Duterte idolizes him, and wants to do as he did. But he is no plotter himself; he is unqualified to be one, if not altogether incapable. Where Marcos was a dark genius, he is merely dark; where he was an original, he is a mere copycat – a copycat yet driven, compulsively, messily, by a personality disorder. But he seems lucky, which makes him even more dangerous.  

Preceded by a reputation built as a strongman mayor of Davao for more than two decades, he ascended to the presidency on a decisive plurality of 16 million votes from a mixed constituency of poor and not-so-poor, the former looking for a quick lift to better life, the latter taken with his aberrant charm or seeing him as an icon of the politics of patronage they subscribe to.

His political star shot quickly, flashily, feeding his clinically diagnosed narcissism. He ruled a provincial city whose two million citizens populated communities so sparsely strung out in a territory 35 times the size of Manila that not enough light, whether from electric power or from political freedom, shone. Now, he rules a whole nation of more than a hundred million and wants to rule it the way he ruled Davao – dictatorially. 

But, if he can’t plot like Marcos, how does he do it? 

He has to continue to be lucky, and so far he’s been lucky. He has found similarly dark-minded, though not necessarily similarly mental (which is not any consolation), and substantial co-conspirators. Among them are two persistent forces: the heirs of Marcos themselves, whose suitability is defined enough by the murders and crony capitalism under their patriarch’s regime, and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

Arroyo deserves special mention for at least 3 things that make for incomparable credentials: 

• She was acquitted of plunder by a Supreme Court whose majority she had herself presciently appointed
• She managed still to assume the presidency (2004-2010) after being found out, and confessing, that she had lobbied an electoral commissioner (Virgilio Garcillano, the “Garci” on the infamous “Hello, Garci...” tape); she appeared on national television, wearing a Mater Dolorosa face, to say, “I…am…sorry” (the elliptical marks are an attempt to capture her measured enunciation visually), and that apparently did it for her
• Duterte singles her out as a chief political partner – out of a “deep debt of gratitude,” he says; he has in fact made her deputy House speaker and is supposed to have promised to make her prime minister if he succeeds in turning the government into a federal one, with himself as federal president

The Lower House itself is an institutional partner. Its ridiculous 90-plus percent majority for Duterte largely comprises district patrons who see in his gang-oriented leadership a furtherance of their own interests and schemes. The quality of their fidelity and usefulness manifests most distastefully in the House justice committee’s current farcical hearings of the impeachment case against Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno.

For a president who brooks no dissent, Sereno is no surprise target: she has voted with the opposite – and losing – side in cases promoted by Duterte (notably, the Arroyo acquittal and the hero’s burial for Marcos); moreover, tenured for a further 14 years, Sereno will be staying too long to be suffered, not only by Duterte but also by her fellow justices whose seniority to her by age and length of service was cancelled out by her appointment and long tenure. Those bypassed justices happen to belong in the Supreme Court majority, as reckoned by their favorable votes in Duterte cases. 

And there lies another exploitable commonality of sentiments with another institution.

In fact, the impeachment hearings were opened as a platform for the justices to air their resentments, an opportunity they promptly grabbed and are now taking advantage of with such reckless alacrity they don’t seem to mind parading their own polluted sense of justice. They have been going after Sereno licentiously. Consenting to testify under rules rigged to suspend the standard right of rebuttal for the accused, they have become compromised themselves, indeed implicitly enlisting themselves for Duterte.

Thought wishfully to be vulnerable to the pressure of a tradition of independent-mindedness, being elected by  national vote, the Senate is seen as the last hurdle to a power consolidation for a Duterte dictatorship. But, if its recent vote for a continuation of martial law in all of Mindanao were any indication, Duterte should feel encouraged. 

The vote came even after the war against terrorists and brigands in Marawi City, itself the original justification for the emergency, had been officially declared won. Furthermore, that vote had been better than decisive – 14 to 4 – although it pales still in comparison with the House vote – 240 to 27.

At any rate, with Congress and the Supreme Court in the fold, the oversight powers over the President are neutralized, and the armed forces’ hang-up on legalities is satisfied.

If we’re not already there, we’re looking right down on it. – Rappler.com

These past weeks, there has been much talk about the possibility of the declaration of a revolutionary government that would give Rodrigo Duterte absolute political power. This initiative, often called “RevGov,” is intended to give Mr Duterte the power and authority to act swiftly and without impediment to address the problems brought about by crime, corruption, non-inclusive growth, and issues that stem from the 1987 Constitution.

Proponents of RevGov have argued that the Constitution is holding the President back from enacting what they claim to be the will of the people. Hence, by setting the Constitution aside through “revolution,” Mr. Duterte would finally be unfettered and free to carry out his vision.

The frustration is understandable. Despite widespread popularity and a position of patronage vis-à-vis his allies in government, Mr. Duterte has nevertheless found his ability to rapidly carry out a broad agenda stymied. The main reason for this is that, despite the vast power that he wields, the president of the Philippines is not an absolute ruler. The president cannot act without Congress, Congress cannot execute things on its own, and actions of either are subject to the review of the Supreme Court.

In other words, the system of checks and balances forces leaders into a paradigm of constant deliberation and consensus-building, with any consensus subject to possible tests of constitutionality. Thus, there can be no rapid, sweeping changes, regardless of administration, because the system of government under the Constitution is not designed to work that way. The theory behind this is that slow, deliberate action, developed through cooperation, is preferable to any one man or small group of men calling the shots. 

We’ve seen what happens when one-man rule occurs. Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law and exercised the extraordinary powers granted to him by the 1935 Constitution. Mr. Marcos ruled for 21 years, which saw widespread human rights violations, unchecked corruption, the deterioration of the economy, and the growth of the national debt.

The New Society agenda eventually devolved into a quest for political self-preservation, leading to the 1986 Snap Election. And because we believe that the results of that election were rigged, the people decided to act to remove him from office through the EDSA Revolution, aided by the armed forces that Marcos had politicized and depended on for power.

As the Inquirer columnist John Nery has observed, Mr. Duterte likes to point to this juncture of history to romanticize his notion of a revolutionary government: Cory Aquino, upon assuming the presidency, was president of a revolutionary government, and effectively a dictator. However, Mr. Nery correctly points out that Mr. Duterte gets his history wrong when he fixates on Mrs. Aquino’s revolutionary powers. The revolution that the people won at EDSA rejected the rigged snap election results. And when Mr. Marcos and his allies were thus displaced, Mrs. Aquino, the only other viable candidate of the election, filled the void with the mandate of the people.

One of the framers of the Constitution, Father Joaquin Bernas, SJ, notes that Cory Aquino assumed whatever extraordinary powers Marcos had. This allowed her to set in motion the events leading to the establishing of the current constitutional order.

The simple truth is that Mr. Duterte does not have the same mandate that Mrs. Aquino did. He was elected by a minority, having won less than half the total votes cast. There was no direct expression of the people’s will akin to the phenomenon at EDSA placing him in a position to claim revolutionary authority. Finally, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) has so far declared that it will not support RevGov. Based on these 3 things alone, RevGov has no mandate, no basis in the people’s will, and no hope of enforcement.  

How would Mr. Duterte and and his allies push for RevGov anyway? Since there can be no claim of an election-based mandate, the only way Mr. Duterte and his allies would be able to claim that a revolution has taken place is some demonstration of popular support that will hopefully convince the AFP to change its position. 

The groundwork for this is already being laid. On various websites and social media, supporters of Mr. Duterte have been calling for support for RevGov, and have been attempting to organize public rallies and demonstrations. For one such event, Mr. Duterte has been invited to attend and accept the “gift” of extraordinary, revolutionary powers from “the people,” giving him a mandate to set aside the 1987 Constitution and its constraints and proceed to enact wide-sweeping reforms, including the creation of a federal and parliamentary system of government, stamping out corruption and crime, and opening the economy to foreign investors.

These demonstrations are likely to be played up together with the favorable poll numbers that Mr. Duterte enjoys. Social media will be a battleground, with supporters of Mr. Duterte, real or not, spreading canned messages and dramatic images, as well as rabidly attacking any perceived resistance. Moreover, the idea that Mr. Duterte enjoys high levels of trust and approval will be hammered home, notwithstanding the fact that polls and surveys may be faulty in their questions, sampling, or other components.  

It is plain to see that if Mr. Duterte declares a revolutionary government, he will be violating his oath to defend the Constitution. Rallies and surveys are not the constitutionally-sanctioned means of effecting constitutional change. The people, in ratifying the Constitution, agreed on the rigorous process of constitutional amendment.

Charter change is difficult, and its requirements of Congressional support and final ratification by the people through a plebiscite have proven to be the stumbling blocks of any previous efforts at amendment. It is difficult because it demands consensus-building at all levels, and putting all that to a vote that passes the Constitution’s requirements is something that cannot be railroaded easily. But then again, the process is meant to be difficult. The social contract cannot simply be set aside; the Republic cannot simply be reset. 

However, since the whole point of RevGov is setting aside the Constitution and its restraints, its fate then turns on enforcement, which means a willingness to put bodies and lives on the line to accomplish RevGov’s ends. It is not impossible to imagine a situation wherein the ability to use force becomes the end game. In other words, the AFP will be decisive. The “EDSA II” uprising of 2001 proved this.

How does this play out? The law is clear: all members of the Armed Forces are, like the President, required to swear an oath or affirmation to uphold and defend the Constitution. The AFP’s chain of command, and their ranks of soldiers, will have to determine what this oath means. Does this mean fidelity to the Constitution’s institutions and processes? Or does this mean agreeing with the assertions of popular support for the revolution? These are not easy choices, and any answer to them includes an increased risk of further politicizing the AFP.

Say Mr. Duterte does declare a revolutionary government and asserts control over the institutions of the state. If the AFP decides that this is acceptable, then the revolution will be won. Mr. Duterte will be unrestrained in enacting reforms that have eluded previous governments, such as settling the autonomy structure for the Bangsamoro, removing restrictions on foreign investments and ownership, and rapidly reshaping the country’s bureaucracy for greater efficiency while stamping out corruption.

This could also mean that Mr. Duterte could stamp out all political opposition, keep himself in power with impunity, and deny the same people who granted him revolutionary powers the means with which to rein him in. 

What if the AFP decides that RevGov is something it must fight? One law dean and former SolGen Florin Hilbay suggested that, in this event, the AFP might view Mr. Duterte as having resigned his office, and would then throw its support behind the Vice President, who would then become the new president, and could then call out the armed forces to uphold the Constitution and defeat the seditious “revolution.”

But to what extent would the armed forces be expected to “uphold and defend the Constitution”? This seems to imply an elegant, legal remedy. The truth can be far from it. The defense of the Constitution would be the single most important law enforcement mission. And like all law enforcement initiatives, it will rely on coercive, destructive, violent force for its ends to be achieved. The AFP, pursuant to its mandate to defend the Republic, has engaged in combat and killed separatists, terrorists, insurrectionists, and other enemies of the state. Defeating RevGov may require the AFP to do the same. Who will fight for Mr. Duterte and the proponents of RevGov?  What if the AFP just decides to seize power for itself?

A violent end scenario for RevGov is terrifying, because the literal survival of the Philippine state would be at stake. While writing about this may seem alarmist, it is, at this point, necessary, because RevGov continues to be pushed. To avoid violence, RevGov proponents would have the opposition simply acquiesce. Doing so, however, would be to succumb to one-man rule, and the end of the Republic. – Rappler.com 

Ramon Miguel Cayco Samson teaches Public International Law and an elective Seminar on Peace Processes in the Philippines at the Ateneo University College of Law. He is also a senior associate at the Romulo Mabanta Buenaventura Sayoc & de los Angeles. He is a graduate of the Ateneo and Columbia law schools.  

Bilang sociologist, matindi ang interes ko sa mga kilusang panlipunan, lalo na iyong mga tinatawag na makakanan o right-wing, na ang mga miyembro ay kumikilos na parang nabubuhay pa sila noong panahong bata pa ang mundo, bago nabuo ang mga komunidad ng tao. Marami nang nagsabi sa akin na delikado ang interes na ito sa mga right-wing na kilusan.

Puwede akong mabugbog 'pag nadiskubre nilang makakaliwa talaga ako – na nangyari na nga nang dalawang beses noong '70s nang gumagawa ako ng disertasyon sa PhD tungkol sa pasistang grupong Patria y Libertad sa Chile sa Latin America.

Ang pinakahuling ganitong uri ng kilusan na nakapukaw ng atensyon ko ay ang DDS o "Die-hard Duterte Supporters," na ang pinuno (kahit 'di pormal na itinalaga) ay si Mocha at ang pangunahing cheerleader na si Dick Gordon. Ang DDS ay paglalaro sa acronym na DDS, na ang orihinal na kahulugan ay Davao Death Squad na pinamunuan ni Duterte bilang mayor ng Davao bago siya maging pangulo. 

Nakakita na ako ng isang miyembrong ng DDS na handang makipag-usap dahil nangako akong 'di ibubunyag kung sino siya. Pero hindi naman ako nangako na hindi ko babanggitin ang mga katangian niya. Lalaki, edad 45, mataba, nakakalbo, pandak, at walang pagdududang middle class. Sa unang tingin, parang tahimik at di manggugulo, kaya’t para siyang wallflower.

Tinanong ko siya paano maging isang DDS. Sabi niya, "May magkakatulad kaming karanasan."

Puwede bang mas maging tiyak at malinaw siya tungkol dito?

Tumingin muna siya sa paligid bago sinabi, at parang nahihiya pa, "Nag-o-orgasm kami 'pag nakikita si Presidente sa TV."  

"Talaga?" tanong ko. 

"Oo, at nagkukumpara kami ng nararanasan namin kaya nagkaroon kami ng isang konklusyon."

"Ano naman ito?" pagpupursigi ko.

Tumingin na naman muna siya sa paligid, at saka nagsabing, "Na mas mabuti pa kaysa sex ang makita lang si Presidente sa TV."

Totoo?! 

"Oo," pagpapatuloy niya, "at nakakagamot pa. Iyong iba sa amin, may problema sa pagpapatigas, iyong iba naman matagal nang nalipasan ng sex drive, pero kapag nakikita namin siya, nagkakaroon ng milagro."

Totoo ba ito para sa lalaki at babae?

"Oo totoo para sa lalaki at babae, matanda at bata, maganda at pangit, kaya ito ang dahilan kung bakit kami matapat sa kanya. Tulad ito sa pagbuhay ni Hesus kay Lazaro. 'Tumindig ka, Lazaro.' At tumindig nga. Naging buo muli ang seksuwal na pagkatao namin." 

Sabi pa niya: "At walang makakatulad sa rally ng DDS kapag naroon si Presidente. Nagkakaroon kami ng kolektibong kaligayahan, isang orgy, pinakasukdulang karanasan sa sex kahit wala namang sex talaga."

Pero napag-isip siya, bago muli nagpaliwanag: "Hindi naman talagang tulad ng kapag may aktuwal na pakikipag-sex. Parang sabay-sabay kaming nakikipagtalik sa kanya, at sa pamamagitan niya, sa bawat isa pa. Alam mo iyon, parang iyong sinasabi ng pari sa misa, "Through Him, with Him, and in Him"? 

Pinilit kong maalaala ito sa Latin noong unang kapanahunan pa na nagsakristan ako, pero mas nauna siya na matandaan ito. Sabi niya bigla, "Per ipsum, et cum ipso, et in ipso."

Wow! Nagtapos kaya itong mamang ito doon sa eskuwelang nasa Katipunan?

Sa puntong ito parang nasa karera ang takbo ng utak ko sa pag-intindi ng mga sinabi niya. Ganito rin ang narinig kong naganap sa mga rally ng mga Nazi, katulad ng sa Nuremberg noong 1936, na, ayon sa mga testimonya ng libu-libong taong dumalo, nagkaroon ng kolektibong pagbabati, karamihan dito ay imboluntaryo. Kaya't nagbabala sa mga babae na huwag munang maglalakad sa nasabing lugar sa loob ng ilang araw at baka aksidenteng mabuntis sila. 

"Pero meron pa," sabi ng kausap ko. "Naabot namin ang sukdulang kaligayahang seksuwal kapag sinasabi niya sa mga kaaway niya, 'Papatayin ko kayong lahat.'"

Ibig mong sabihin, natu-turn on kayo dahil sa panawagang pumatay?

Ngumiti siya, pero nag-iba na ang itsura niya. Hindi na katulad noong simula; may pagbabanta ang kanyang ngiti. "Ngayon alam mo na kung bakit DDS kung tawagin namin ang aming sarili."

Salamat, sabi ko, at nagmamadali akong umalis. Baka kung ano pa ang mangyari sa akin.

Pagkatapos ng interbyu, kinuha ko ang isang lumang libro na matagal ko nang di nabasa, ang Mass Psychology of Fascism ni Wilhelm Reich. Tama ba si Reich? Na ang pasismo ay isang kilusang pampulitika na nakaugat sa represyong seksuwal at mga pakiramdam na ang isang tao ay may kakulangang seksuwal, at ang pinunong pasista ang siyang nagtagumpay sa pagpapalabas ng mga nasiil na damdamin/enerhiyang ito para maging isang malaking galit na makakapagtulak na pumatay? 

Kung tama si Reich, malaki talaga ang problema nating nabubuhay dito sa kumbentong Katoliko na nagpapanggap na bansa. – Rappler.com

Maliban sa paminsan-minsang pagsusulat ng satirical fiction, natuturo din ng sociology si Walden Bello. Naging miyembro siya ng Kamara ng mga Representante mula 2009 hanggang 2015, ngunit nagbitiw dahil sa prinsipyo – hindi siya sang-ayon sa ilang prinsipyo ni Pangulong Benigno Aquino III. Pinakabagong non-fictional study niya ang “Counterrevolution, the Countryside, and the Middle Classes,” na nasa January 2018 issue ng Journal of Peasant Studies. Mababasa ang pag-aaral dito.

Who needs to declare martial law nationwide in a country already choking on dead bodies and breathing disinformation? Certainly not President Rodrigo Duterte, who, in the last 18 months, has managed to scare the opposition, shame the Left, cow big media, and befuddle the public through his foul mouth and whimsical mind.

We’ve been acting as if we needed legislation as proof that we’ve lost some freedoms. We’ve been planning as if we’d wake up one morning to a press conference announcing democracy’s death. We’ve been thinking as if we didn’t know that trying to define where we are now, or what we’ve become, is a luxury that only the blind could afford.

Of course we’re in trouble! No country in peacetime loses what it has in one act – except through an act of God. We lose ourselves in bits and pieces, in our everyday hits and misses, in the times we justify the wrong and embrace the convenient.

We lost what we had the moment we quibbled over the exact number – 3,000? 7,000? 13,000? – of civilians killed in the war on drugs, but would not even pry into how they were shot. We lost what we had the moment we allowed a senator to rot in jail over drug charges peddled by convicts who make a living out of lying. We lost what we had the moment we became forgiving of the fake and the slipshod in the name of giving voice to the voiceless.  

Democracy dies not in a single shot, but in increments that we take for granted as there’s enough already on our plate: home, work, sanity, ambitions.

The question for the coming year – and the question that we need to ask ourselves as we end the year – is not whether Duterte would declare this or that, or do this or that. The way he has bulldozed into our lives by saying what he wants and doing what he pleases should not make us doubt his capacity – or will. Philippine presidents enjoy enormous powers granted both by the Constitution and a population infatuated by shortcuts and burned by failed post-Marcos regimes.

But what can we do about it?

Beyond Facebook 

For starters, we ought to stop romanticizing the people power revolution we mounted 3 decades ago and the norms it embedded in our lives. 

Democracy today is not some self-sustaining business that has recurring revenues. Consider it as a start-up swimming in rough waters that needs to innovate, evolve, adapt, learn. While it is true that we booted out a dictator 31 years ago, it is also true that we tolerated him for 20 years before that – especially as he held so much promise and potential. Authoritarians past and present seldom come via the backdoor. We usually elect them to office, often nurtured by business and political elites that fool themselves into thinking they could put them under control, and then realize their folly a tad too late.

Germany’s conservatives made that mistake once upon a time, when they thought they could use – and tame – a politician named Adolf Hitler. Barack Obama referred to this in a recent speech in Chicago, where he cautioned Americans against assuming that “things continue as they have been." They don’t, he said, and “things can fall apart fairly quickly.” The late Hugo Chavez caused the erosion of Latin America’s 3rd oldest democracy through a prolonged period of mixing good and bad practices, crafting laws and patiently prostituting the bureaucracy by applying method to his madness.

The problem is not unique to us, and it’s driven not only by frustrations with liberal democracy or the comeuppance of capitalist greed. Technology and its disruptions in the last decade have rewired our brains, reshaped our conversations, and rebooted our bottled-up emotions. Social media, once welcomed as the tool that could save the world, ironically had become the perfect platform for populists and populism.

While not on Twitter like his American BFF, President Duterte quacks like a social media duck. He shoots from the hip, provokes rage, and embodies the desires and needs of believers massed up in one echo chamber. He projects unmediated governance, the kind that seeks to bypass the scrutiny and established processes of the bureaucracy, the courts, Congress, the media, and the international community. Along the way, we are swept into a wave of vitriol, triggered by government-backed keyboard warriors who lure us into their spaces of hate and unprocessed thoughts. 

All this diminishes our collective capacity, and traps us in our safe zones. As we polarize, he thrives. The challenge is not to ignore this reality, but to clobber it with new tactics, new spaces, new actions – hell, new ideas. Sadly, these continue to evade every sector.

Stop flirting with military

This isn’t the time, either, to romanticize the other “revolution” that ousted yet another plunderer, former President Joseph Estrada, with the help of mass movements and NGO leaders who connived with military officers who then instigated the armed forces’ unprecedented withdrawal of support from their commander-in-chief in January 2001. Look what that got us: Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. The proud general who helped install her to power, Angelo Reyes, was later exposed for tolerating institutional corruption in the military, and he shot himself dead at the burial ground of his mother.

President Duterte is very much aware of the military’s adventurous streak, which is why in the past year he has spent most of his time – and government resources – wooing them through all means possible. Beyond visiting their camps and wakes and raising their combat pays, the President signed a good number of proclamations that aim to solidify his ideological and personal bond with the troops, as he imposed martial law in Mindanao, terminated peace talks with the communist rebels, and declared the rebels’ party and armed group terrorists. His ramped-up rhetoric against the communists, his former allies, is meant for the military, his way of saying, “I’m not in bed with your nemesis, boys. I’m with you all the way.” The subtext to that, of course, is that the President expects them to be with him all the way too.

While it is true that the current commanders joined the military in the mid-’80s as the Marcos dictatorship was dying, and therefore were the most exposed to its corruption and abuse and most welcoming of its end, it’s not safe to assume that the soldier’s psyche in the last 30 years – bowing to civilian control, intervening only when asked to – has not changed. The Filipino soldier is not immune to democracy’s failed promises in the last 3 decades. So it is best not to give him any ideas, and to thwart all overt and covert attempts to bring him closer to the notion that he could govern better than civilians.

After all, it’s the civilians – in society, in government – whose work for 2018 is cut out for them.

The civilian challenge

We are in a tough, uncharted world. The train has left the station, so what can civilian political players and groups do about it? 

For starters, they need to recognize the benefit of slow death (for lack of a better term). The fact that freedoms, institutions, and processes are eroded bit by bit – and not in one blow (not that we’d want that) – allows political players some space to stop or delay the authoritarian path.

This has ceased to be about the President. This is about the entire breadth of individuals and groups proclaiming their commitment to democracy and human rights and who are in a position to fight for it every single day.

This has ceased to be about the fear of nationwide martial law or the plan to federalize government. This is about the grave impact of a rewritten Constitution, because if there’s one lesson from other strongmen, it is that a new charter is usually their first legitimate step toward delegitimizing a system.

This has ceased to be about impeaching the chief justice and the Ombudsman or paralyzing institutions. This is about the serious consequences of acquiescence – whether in the form of silence or political posturing or justified sycophancy.

It’s time to stop wishing for a single, hardball opportunity that would end this state of abuse and keep the fire of democracy burning. None is coming (short of an act of God). The party’s over, the hard work begins. The opportunity will come in small measures and moments, and whether these self-proclaimed democrats in and out of government would have the integrity to see them, the smarts to seize them, and the courage to act upon them beyond their sectarian interests.

Just as it took the power of an organized people to get democracy back from a kleptocrat a lifetime ago, so does the task of keeping it.

2018 is yours – and ours – to fix. Individually and collectively. And then who knows what, or who, would emerge from it? – Rappler.com

The author is on sabbatical at Harvard as a Nieman journalism fellow.

Latest statements regarding the sorrowful situation of Metro Manila only reflects the incapacity of certain public servants to address the gross urban planning problem that has converted the Pearl of the Orient into the Gates of Hell in just a few decades. (READ: Duterte: Manila will be a 'dead city' in 25 years)

Some Filipino friends told me that the reason for this decay was the destruction of Manila during the Second World War, but pictures of the capital in the ’50s and the ’60s are proof that, not so long time ago, Manila was still a very pleasant city to live in. 

For Filipino politicians, travelling to well-planned cities would be a good starting point in order to establish a comparative analysis. Which ordinances did those cities implement in order to provide a better standard of life to the citizens? It would not be a bad idea to force Filipino mayors to take a mandatory course on the basics of urban planning – an important task where they tend to show the utmost lack of understanding, given the sorrowful state of most Filipino cities. 

The problem of the liveability of Metro Manila is a big one and the causes of the dysfunctionality are relatively easy to point out. The real challenge is to face the economic forces and the lack of certain incentives among citizens that have pushed the city into the current situation.

Corruption might be one of the causes. I cannot honestly imagine a Filipino mayor denying the permit for the construction of a condo tower or a big mall in an already congested area when offered by a wealthy developer. Citizens only react when a well-known landmark is threatened, as it happened with Torre de Manila (a project that was in the end approved) and a mall planned in Rizal Stadium (it has been saved by the historical commission).

Traversing EDSA recently from Magallanes to Cubao, I have seen the development of at least 15 big condo projects and some malls. No one of those would be legal in Spain, Italy, or France, where public ordinances mandate that no big project can be developed in an area that is already congested with traffic. A study on the impact (in terms of traffic) of the construction in the area would be mandatory, and no one I guess would pass it.

The total freedom of developers to build whatever they want whenever they want is just one of the reasons. But it is easy to point out a few more. For instance, nobody could imagine Tokyo, Seoul, Paris, or New York being managed by 17 mayors, but this is the case in Metro Manila, resulting in a total lack of coordination in public ordinances and having different rules (like car bans or “walang pasok” statements) that leave citizens disoriented. Big cities in the world assimilated naturally surrounding cities while growing. It did not happen in the Philippines, where even new cities have been created, like Navotas in 2007. The efforts of MMDA and LFRTB are severely made difficult by this administrative mess.

Nobody could imagine any of the aforementioned top cities trying to solve the traffic problem with e-jeepneys, but this is the case in Metro Manila. While it is undeniably true that e-jeepneys are an improvement in terms of reduction of pollution compared to traditional old jeepneys, the mobility problem is still there. Trying to move daily millions of commuters in uncomfortable 16-seater jeepneys that are allowed to load and unload passengers practically anywhere can’t be the long term – nor short term! – system for a city who aspires to be world class, as Filipinos like to mention.

The provincial buses that traverse Manila, many of them with broken doors and windows, horn-blowing mercilessly even at 3 am and driven recklessly, can’t be a system either. It is time for Metro Manila to have a complex network of lines of numbered/colored long buses, implemented according to the real mobility needs of the city, with bus stops and schedules, like in any major city in the world. Comfortable high-quality buses could be in the short term a solution to encourage middle class people to leave the car at home, which are the main cause of traffic, while the idea of building a subway is still developed.

One more thing: you cannot burn fat in your body by getting bigger pants, but this is apparently the solution that has been commonly implemented in Manila. Widening roads at the cost of sidewalks has been so far a preferred solution to traffic congestion, so citizens cannot walk even if they wanted to. I do not think the problem is generally the lack of roads, but the lack of reliable public transportation and the excess of cars. The Bonifacio Global City is an example of this. Unlike in Singapore, where owning a car was made difficult in purpose in order to collect taxes and avoid traffic congestion, easy bank credits in the Philippines has facilitated the purchase of cars to the point that thousands of them are newly added to the roads every year. 

In all the mentioned problems there are clear economic winners, and those who are actually in power have all the incentives to not change the status quo and to not contribute to the improvement of the city. The fact that the Philippines has been a nation betrayed by its economic and political elite can be illustrated in the poor urban planning issue. Lack of public spaces, like plazas and parks, is just a reflection of their greed, and it has forced Filipinos to spend their free time in malls.

Saving Metro Manila must be a number one task for all Filipinos, not only because it is the capital of the country, but because it is also – still – its beating soul. – Rappler.com 

Jorge Mojarro has lived in the Philippines since 2009. He holds a PhD in Philippine Colonial Literature, teaches Spanish language and culture at the Instituto Cervantes de Manila, and conducts research for the University of Santo Tomas. He is a self-proclaimed lover of Philippine gastronomy.

Lumang taktika na ang “kaaway ng kaaway ko ay kaibigan ko” pero mukhang mainam itong nagamit ni Pangulong Rodrigo Duterte upang makuha ang simpatya ng militar.

Kung matatandaan natin, maraming naniniwalang ang militar ang pinakamalaking balakid sa lubos na pagkopo ng kapangyarihan ng pinagsususpetsahang dictator-in-the-making na si Digong. Matikas na nagdeklara ang mga pinuno ng Armed Forces of the Philippines na pangangalagaan nila ang demokrasya.

Subali’t marami nang nangyari mula nang huling umugong ang nationwide martial law (ML). Naipanalo na ng militar ang giyera sa Marawi. Natapos na rin ang dalawang dekadang romansa ni Duterte at ng Kaliwa na nagsimula sa Davao, kung saan kinupkop ni Mayor ang ilang mga nahuling kadre, kinopya ang pinakabayolente nitong diskarte, at idineklara ang sarili na isang komunista. 

Ngayon, kung pakikinggan ang Presidente, wala nang hihigit pa sa pagkamuhi sa dating bespren na kasama sa deklaradong kaaway ng ML reboot. Tapos na ang pagngingitngit ng mga sundalo dahil gumuho na rin ang minamartilyong usapang pangkapayapaan sa Kaliwa. 

Walang dudang mahalaga ang papel ng militar sa isang presidenteng nangangarap ng pagbabagong rebolusyonaryo (o reaksyonaryo). Kailangan ang armadong lakas sa kahit na anong pang-aagaw ng kapangyarihang susundan ng pagkokonsolida ng lakas.

Kung dati’y mailap sa pagsuyo ni Digong ang top-brass sa kabila ng linggo-linggong pagbisita ng Pangulo sa mga kampo, ngayo'y namumukadkad ang pagkakaibigan matapos na ibigay ang pinakamimithi: ilaglag na ang mga komunista.

At sa senaryong ito, shoot na shoot ang pagpapalawig ng batas militar sa Mindanao. Sa ilalim ng official excuse na rehabilitasyon at pagtugis sa mga terorista, maraming ibang puwedeng maganap. Andiyan ang pagtutulak ng federalism sa grassroots. Kung sablay pa rin doon, puwede namang revolutionary government na lang ang lutuin.

At ano ang mapapala ng taumbayan sa bagong kaayusan? 

Mananatili ang tapalodo ng kapayapaan sa mga sentrong bayan. Ikatutuwa ito ng mga negosyante habang tuloy sa pagkatok ang mga mantotokhang sa mga pinakadukhang mga tahanan. 

Wala nang aasahang saklolo mula sa mga korte ang isang taong arestado dahil suspendido na ang writ of habeas corpus na garantiya sana laban sa unli-torture at pagkakakulong. 

Duda kami kung maeenganya ang mga dayuhang mamumuhunan dahil sa totoo lang, ang batas militar ay batas militar. 

Sa kabila ng pagsisikap nito na maging propesyonal mula nang bumagsak ang diktadurang Marcos, makahihindi ba ang mga sundalo sa shortcuts na dulot ng martial law? Makaiiwas ba ang mga tropa sa pang-aabuso kung tangan na nila ang guwantes na bakal? Makatatanggi ba sila sa tawag ng pangungurakot kung bukas na bukas ang pinto para magpayaman? Hindi ba't tao lamang sila?

Noong panahon ng batas militar ni Marcos, nilikha ng grupong Asin ang awit na "Balita". Nakapanlulumo na apat na dekada ang nakalipas, angkop na angkop pa rin ito.

Mula nang makita ko ang lupang ito
Nakita ko rin ang munting apoy sa puso ng tao
Ginatungan ng mga kabulukan hanggang sa lumago
Ngayon ang puso'y may takot sa lupang pinangako

Madudugo ang mga katanungang sumulpot sa usapin ng martial law extension. Andiyan ang kaduda-dudang ligalidad nito na pinalusot ng isang rubber stamp na Kongreso. Test case daw ito para sa nationwide na batas militar. Tinawag ito ng mga obispong "pagkalasing sa kapangyarihan."

Pero malinaw pa sa sikat ng araw, inilalayo ng isang taong batas militar sa Mindanao ang Pilipinas sa kanlungan ng demokrasya at inilalapit sa kahibangan ng isang diktadura. – Rappler.com 

Balitang-balita ngayon ang tungkol sa bakuna laban sa dengue. Marami ang nababahala, lalo na ang mga nabakunahan.

Marami at salusalungat ang impormasyong naibibigay sa mamamayan tungkol sa bakuna.

Marami po sa impormasyon ay mali. Sa aking palagay, may iba’t-ibang dahilan. Isang dahilan ay ang pagkawalang-bahala ng ilang media na mali-mali ang nirereport dahil hindi nila iniintindi o inaaral ang datos at impormasyon.

Isa pa dito ay napulitika na nang husto ang isyung ito kaya’t nabibigyan na ng maling interpretasyon ang mga datos at pangyayari tungkol sa programa ng gobyerno.

Dahil dito, sinubok kong isuma ang impormasyon mula sa mga mapagkakatiwalaang eksperto at institusyon. Layunin ko pong maibsan ang pagkabahala at pag-aalalang ng mga pamilya. Heto po ang mga itinatanong ng mga pangkaraniwang tao at ang mga kasagutan.

Tanong: Safe ba ang bakuna laban sa dengue?

Sagot: Opo, kung tama ang paggamit. Halos lahat ng gamot at iba pang teknolohiya sa medisina ay mapanganib kung hindi tama ang paggamit.

T: Ano ang tamang pamamaraan ng paggamit ng bakuna laban sa dengue?

S: Ayon po sa World Health Organization:

1. Ang bakuna ay dapat ibigay sa mga komunidad kung saan higit sa 70% ng populasyon ay nagkadengue na.
2. Hindi bababa nang 9 na taong gulang ang babakunahan.
3. Tatlong beses dapat ibibigay ang bakuna. 

T: Sinunod ba ng Department of Health ang utos ng WHO tungkol sa tamang paggamit ng bakuna?

S: Opo. Ayon sa WHO noong Disyembre, 5, 2017: “WHO acknowledged mid-April 2016 that these conditions appeared to be met in the 3 regions of the Philippines in which the dengue vaccination effort was already ongoing at that time.”

T: Kahit po safe ang bakuna, epektibo ba ito?

S: Opo. Paulit-ulit po itong sinabi ng WHO. Kung tungkol po sa Pilipinas, pakipanood na lang ang video kung saan sinabi ni Dr Gundo Weiler ng WHO na mababawasan ang bilang ng maoospital dahil sa pagbibigay ng bakuna dito sa Pilipinas. Sinabi po niya ito noong Apirl 2016 nang sinusuri ang programa ng DOH.

T: Bakit po sa imbestigasyon sa Senado tungkol po sa bakuna, iba-iba po ang sinasabi ng mga eksperto?

S: Likas po sa agham, lalo na sa medisina, ang pagkakaiba-iba ng opinyon ng mga eksperto. Nguni’t hindi po ibig sabihin na pareho lamang ang timbang ng kanilang mga opinyon. Ang karamihan po ng eksperto at ang karamihan ng pag-aaral tungkol sa bakuna laban sa dengue ay nagsasabing ito ay ligtas at epektibo. Kaya po mayroong World Health Organization, ang internasyonal na institusyong kinikilala ng lahat ng gobyerno at siyang nagbibigay ng payo sa mga gobyerno tungkol sa mga tamang patakaran tungkol sa kalusugan.

Dapat intindihin ng lahat na pinahahalagahan ang mga kritiko dahil nakatutulong ang kritisismong maging maayos at masinop ang pagtuklas at paggamit ng gamot. Ngunit hindi nangangahulugang  tama ang lahat ng kritiko. At kung narinig ninyo ang isang eksperto sa Senado na nagsabing “kami lang ang tama,” 'yan na po ang indikasyon ninyong huwag magtiwala sa kanila. Sa totoo lang, kahit sinong diumano’y ekspertong nagsasabi na sila lang ang tama, lalo na't salungat sila sa WHO at karamihan ng ibang eksperto, di sila dapat pagkatiwalaan.

T: Hindi ba nag-report ang mismong manufacturer na may problema pala ang bakuna nila?

S: Noong November 29, 2017, nag-report ang Sanofi Pasteur, ang manufacturer ng bakuna, batay sa 6 na taon nilang pag-monitor sa mga nabakunahan, na mas mataas ang posibilidad na maospital ang mga nabakunahang hindi pa nagkakasakit ng dengue.

Subali’t inulit nilang nagbibigay ang bakuna ng “significant, durable protection from dengue” para sa mga taong nagkasakit na ng dengue bago mabakunahan.

Ayon sa datos, sa grupong minonitor na nagkasakit na ng dengue bago mabakunahan, nababawasan ang mga naospital at nagkaroon ng severe dengue. Ganito rin para sa mga taong hindi pa nagkaka-dengue bago mabakunahan sa loob ng dalawang taon. Nguni’t simula nang ikatlong taon matapos mabakunahan, sa bawa’t 1,000 kataong hindi pa nagkaka-dengue bago mabakunahan, maaaring madagdagan ng 5 katao ang maoospital at dalawang katao ang magkaroon ng  “severe” dengue.

T: Ang ibig ba sabihin nito ay nagkamali ang WHO at ang DOH? Hindi po ba dapat inalam lahat ng posibleng problema bago inaprubahan ang bakuna?

S: Hindi. Ang WHO mismo ang nag-utos sa Sanofi Pasteur na magmonitor pa sa epekto ng gamot. Mahaba ang proseso ng pagtuklas at testing ng bagong gamot. Ang pinakahuli nito ay ang pagmonitor kung ano ang magiging epekto kapag ang isang gamot ay ginamit na ng maraming tao o sa mahabang panahon. Kahit kasi anong ingat sa testing, hindi naman talaga malalaman ang lahat habang hindi pa ito nagagamit ng maraming tao sa pangmatagalan. Paminsan minsan, kailangang ipa-recall ang isang gamot na inaprubahan na dahil napakalubha pala ng side effects na nakikita matapos itong ipagamit na sa lahat. Nguni’t sa kaso ng bakuna sa dengue hindi naman ito pinare-recall. (BASAHIN: FDA orders market pullout of Dengvaxia vaccine)

Sa totoo lang nagsabi ang  ang Ministry of Health ng Brazil, isa pang bayan kung saan marami ang binigyan ng bakuna, na kahit naglabas ng dagdag na warning ang Sanofi Pasteur, itutuloy pa rin nila ang pagbibigay ng bakuna. Bibigyan lamang ng paalala ang mga hindi pa nagkadengue na huwag na munang magpabakuna. 

T: Kaduda-duda ba na sinimulan ng gobyerno ang pagbabakuna nang dalawang buwan bago lumabas ang guidelines ng WHO?

S: Habang lumabas ang guidelines ng WHO nung July 2016, ibinatay nila ito sa statement noong April 2016 ng sarili nilang mga eksperto, ang WHO Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on immunization (SAGE). Minabuti ng gobyerno na simulan nang maaga dahil tuwing Abril tumataas na ang mga kaso ng dengue sa Pilipinas.

T: Nabalitaan ko na sinabi ng WHO mismo na hindi raw nila nirekomenda ang bakuna para sa national immunization program ng Pilipinas.

S: Totoo po iyon. Hindi nila inirekomendang lahat ay bakunahan. Sa halip ay inirekomenda nilang bigyan ng bakuna ang ilang piling lugar. 'Yon po ang ginawa ng DOH.

T: Ang bakuna ba mismo ang nagiging sanhi ng dengue?

S: Mahalagang linawin na hindi nanggagaling sa bakuna ang sakit na dengue. Galing ito sa kagat ng lamok na may dengue virus.

T: Paano ko malalaman kung nagka-dengue na ako o hindi?

S: Marami sa atin ang nakakseguro na tayo ay nagka-dengue na dahil na-diagnose tayo ng doktor o naospital tayo.

Nguni’t higit na marami ang nagkaka-dengue na hindi man lamang napansin na nagkaimpeksyon na pala sila. Sa sakit na ito, ang pangalawang impeksyon ang mapanganib. Kaya’t nirekomenda ng WHO na sa mga lugar na ayon sa pagsusuri ay 70% o higit pa ang nagka-dengue ibigay na ang bakuna sa lahat.

T: Dapat ba akong magpabakuna kung sigurado akong nagka-dengue na ako?

S: Opo. Iyon pa rin ang rekomendasyon ng WHO at karamihan ng mga eksperto.

T: Kung hindi ako nakakaseguro na nagka-dengue ako, may test ba na makapagsasabi kung nagkasakit na nga ako?

S: Walang mabisa at abot-kayang test na makapgsasabi kung nagkasakit ka na dati o hindi pa. Ang mga ginagamit na test ngayon ay mabisa lamang kung kasalukuyan kang may sakit.

T: Dapat bang isinugal ang buhay ng kahit iilan lamang kahit magdadala ito ng kabutihan para sa higit na marami?

S: Ayon sa report ng Sanofi Pasteur walang ni isang namatay sa mga nagkaroon ng side effects at lahat naman ay gumaling. Wala pa talagang naiulat na namatay dahil sa bakuna. Ayon pa sa mga eksperto, hindi dapat ikatakot ang salitang “severe dengue” na ginamit ng Sanofi Pasteur dahil ang pamantayan nila para tawaging “severe” ang side effects na nakita nila ay hindi nangangahulugan ng tipo ng dengue na humahantong sa kamatayan.

T:  Nabakunahan ang anak ko at hindi namin alam kung nagkasakit na siya ng dengue o hindi. Dapat ba akong mabahala?

S: Hindi lahat ng bata sa Pilipinas ang binigyan ng bakuna. Kung isa kayo sa mga pamilyang nakatira sa lugar na pinili ng DOH na bakunahan, malamang ay nagkasakit na nga ang inyong anak ng dengue at, sa gayon, mabibigyan siya ng dagdag na proteksyon.

Ayon sa report ng Sanofi-Pasteur sa mga nabakunahan na hindi pa nagkakasakit, may .05% na dagdag na panganib na maospital, at 0.2% dagdag na panganib na magkaroon ng severe dengue.

T: Ano ngayon ang dapat gawin ng mga nabakunahan?

S: Pareho naman ang dapat gawin ng lahat ng mamayan kahit nabakunahan o hindi. Dapat mag-ingat pa rin sa kagat ng lamok, lalo na sa mga lugar na naka-epidemic o kilalang may dengue. Kasama na dito ang paggamit ng kulambo, at paglinis sa mga naimbak na tubig na maaaring pagpugaran ng lamok.

Higit na mahalaga, kung may mga sintomas ng dengue, kumonsulta agad sa doktor. – Rappler.com

Si Sylvia Estrada Claudio ay isang doktor ng medisina na doktorado din ng sikolohiya. Bilang isang ordinaryong manggagamot na ilang dekada nang bumababad sa mga mahirap na pamayanan nakasanayan na niyang ipaliwanag ang mga sinasabi ng mga eksperto sa ordinaryong mamamayan. Higit po niyang tinututulan ang walang galang na pagtrato ni Sen. Dick Gordon sa mga testigong na sa aking pananaw, ay hindi sumasang-ayon sa kanyang mga hinala at akala. Sa pagkakilala niya sa loob na maraming taon sa mga eksperto tulad ni Dr. Kenneth Hartigan Go at ni Dr. Julius Lecciones, tapat po sila sa kanilang propesyon. Wala pong naitutulong sa mamayan kapag ang isang panig lamang ng mga eksperto, yaong panig pa na sinusuway ang opinyon ng karamihan, ang binigyang daan sa isang imbestigasyon. Humihingi po siya ng patawad kung nagbabanggit siya ng mga pangalan ng ilan. Mahirap po kasing panoorin ang paninira sa mga mabubuting tao.

There is a reason why they say that Christmas is for children. The gifts, the reunions, and the long vacation make memories of Christmas happiest at childhood.

But something with adulthood transforms Christmas. A heartbreak, the loss of a loved one, or an illness that coincides with the season can suck the life out of it.

For those of us who have experienced a tragedy, no feast can bring back its joy. At best, Christmas is merely a moment of fleeting gladness.

In this light, Christmas has become an annual ritual of misery in which one is compelled to perform joy. Why not? Its bright lights have cast only shadows. The happiness of other people only deepens one's loneliness.

They know that Christmas is no longer merry. And attending Christmas parties has become a burden.

Turning a blind eye

Christmas trumps every other season. That is true as far as our culture is concerned.

Easter, which is far more significant in the Christian annual cycle, does not even compare. We count down to the birth of Christ, but not to his death and resurrection.

That ours may be the longest Christmas season in the world is a testament to how much we value it. We anticipate it with gladness and even prolong it. I have at least two neighbors who don't bother to bring down their decors at all.

In a way, the enduring charm of Christmas lies in its simplest joys: Misa de Gallo, puto bumbong, and Noche Buena.

But over the years, much fanfare has drowned out its simplicity. This has taken place in a surreptitious manner.

Every sale at the mall, every Christmas party, and every gift exchange all bring us together. The irony, however, is that they have all created an atmosphere in which the things of Christmas have overshadowed its relationships.

Consumption, festivities, and all the fanfare impress upon us that the busier it is, the merrier our Christmas is going to be.

The perpetual novelty of Christmas no longer lies in the charm of its simplicity. For it to endure as a season of anticipated joy, fanfare needs to be created – and recreated – with themed parties, expensive gifts, and bright lights in the city.

Christmas has thus become commodified in itself. It has become an object that must be imbued with economic value if it were to be consumed well.

We are bombarded with images that tell us that Christmas is a beautiful fantasy. And because we buy into it, we do not realize what it has become: a season for the demonstration of affluence and the performance of happiness.

To drive home my point, is it ever imaginable for a Christmas without gifts and parties?

The French sociologist Guy Debord once claimed that the more a person identifies with these consumerist images, "the less he understands his own life and his own desires".

The fanfare is in fact merely a fantasy.

Thus the way we celebrate Christmas does not erase the tragedy of loneliness. Consciously or otherwise, it simply turns a blind eye to it. The performance of joy renders lonely people invisible.

Either they are not invited or they themselves have to perform joy.

A compassionate tale

Nobody wishes to be a party pooper. But we need to recognize that in the midst of joy, there are those who are trying to be happy.

These are the ones who lost a relative. These are parents whose children are no longer around. Some folks are sick and blaming themselves for it. Others are helplessly waiting for their relationships to end. Many others have simply been left behind.

It may be merry for many. But for some of us, Christmas has become a season of misery.

And so perhaps Christmas is not just for children.

Think about it: There is a reason why the angels proclaimed the birth of Christ to shepherds. For a change, it was not the privileged who got it first.

The story of Christmas, in other words, must be read as a quiet, compassionate tale. It is a story for people for whom life is marked by its tragedies, loneliness, and rejection.

Christmas is therefore for those for whom it evokes unmerry memories.

This season we need to recognize who they are in our midst.

Only then can we fulfill the promise of Christmas: peace on earth and goodwill to all. – Rappler.com

Jayeel S. Cornelio, PhD is a sociologist of religion at the Ateneo de Manila University. He is one of the country's eight Oustanding Young Scientists in 2017. Starting January 2018, he will be a visiting professor at the Divinity School of Chung Chi College at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Share with him your thoughts on Twitter @jayeel_cornelio. 

Dear Digong,

This is me breaking up with you. I think we both knew this wasn’t going anywhere, but still, you don’t know how much it pains me to write this.

For sure, from the start, you were never my type. You reminded me too much of the other men in my past that I had learned to avoid and distrust – and with good reason.

I’ve had men like you. Larger than life. Big on promises and even bigger on braggadocio. If I were still a teenager, all of it would have excited me. There are still tall tales of you roaring around town on your big bike, with a lopsided smile that bordered on a sly smirk. A pistol always peeking out of our belt. Cursing was all part of the devilish charm.

Deliciously rebellious. Unapologetically naughty. Downright forbidden.

Your presence made churchgoing mothers instinctively make the sign of the cross. Fathers would furrow their eyebrows and narrow their eyes at the mere mention of you. But deep inside, they were intimidated by you. Scared, even.

There were millions who thought you were the one for me. And in spite of myself, I could understand why. You made me believe in the future.

You weren’t the first one to promise a future – far from it. But you were the first one to make me believe it was possible. They all said you had what the others didn’t: heart, sincerity, and commitment. The staying power to keep me happy.

So I gave you a chance. God knows I’ve given others who promised much less so much more of me.

The first few months were agonizing. There was too much blood. Too much pain. Grief beyond comprehension. But I was still willing to give you a chance. I told myself that it was too early to give up. You would change. You had to. It couldn’t go on this way.

Then you buried the dictator in sacred ground. You know how much he had hurt me. You tried to wash your hands of any wrongdoing, but you even sent flowers, for god’s sake! Everyone saw it. You weren’t even sorry about it. You were just sorry you were caught.

The West Philippine Sea would have been our legacy to our children. But you threw it all away for a stack of loans – no, pledges – from my most bitter rival. You placed her interests before mine. All it took was some drumbeating and a flamboyant ceremony in your honor. It has been months but I can still taste the betrayal.

I know there were good times, too. You were sensitive, caring, and most of all – present. For the soldiers, for the migrant workers, for the police. But you were selective in your affection and abusive and sadistic in wielding punishment. I couldn’t understand how you could be so caring to some and yet so callous to others.

I was not asking for perfection. Only a fool believes in that. Perfection is what we say we need when we don’t know what we want. It’s the same thing when we say we need a savior who will make everything right. I knew what I wanted. I knew what I needed. Decency. Transparency. Respect.

My mother was right. Kindness outweighs and outlives all else.

I know what is going to come next. You or your spokesperson will explain. You will make  extravagant grand gestures of atonement. You will say all the right things.

Only, you will say them at the wrong time.

No more empty promises. No more lies. No more proclamations that are so hollow they echo in my ears. I am so very tired.

You’re not going to be the last man who will break my heart, I know. But I know enough to choose better next time.

Pilipinas

– Rappler.com

(Sing to the tune of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas")

Ang haba na naman ng pila
Ang haba na naman ng pila
Ang haba na naman ng pila
Sa taxi't MRT

Kung puwede na lang
I-skip ang party
Saksakan sa trapik
Mula South to QC

– Rappler.com

The international organization Reporters Without Borders has rated the Philippines as the most dangerous place for journalists in Asia and among the 5 most dangerous in the world. No one would quarrel with that. In fact, the Philippines has lingered around those levels of notoriety through the years.

Journalists being democracy's designated frontliners for unearthing and exposing official wrongdoing, their safety is naturally a critical concern. But, lest the forest be missed for the trees, the Philippines is actually one of the world's most dangerous places not just for journalists but for its very own people. A survey of presidential history illuminates the point.

The excuse is not seldom given that the Filipino people are a condemned child of history; the fact is they have been victims of a run of corrupt and high-handed leaders that began with Ferdinand Marcos. 

Through 14 years of martial law, from 1972, Marcos racked up a formidable record of murder, torture, enforced disappearances, and plunder. The great flush of popular revolt by street vigil in 1986 did succeed in sweeping him out of power, bloodlessly, and in installing a democratic successor, but it failed to stop a rebound of reactionary forces. 

Already saddled with a plundered and debt-ridden economy and a damaged culture, Corazon Aquino had yet to fight off 7 coup plots. That she managed under those conditions to get a constitutional democracy reestablished was achievement enough: it provided her successor and revolt partner, Fidel Ramos, with an institutional framework for socioeconomic reconstruction. 

Doubtless helped by being once a Marcos general, Ramos himself served out a coup-free term and responded with a productive leadership. But, after him, the nation, under Joseph Estrada, went backsliding so dramatically he had to be stopped in midterm; he was impeached for plunder and, when the senators dilly-dallied in finding him guilty and firing him, the people stepped in and booted him out in the same fashion as they had done in Marcos' case. Estrada was subsequently convicted in court and sent to jail, but was pardoned by his successor, Gloria Arroyo, a president who would put herself in similar trouble but also find herself in similar luck. 

After serving out the remaining 3 years of Estrada's term, Arroyo managed to complete a regular 6-year term of her own despite a victory discredited by a voice tape revealing her lobbying an election commissioner. Once out of the presidency, she was arrested and detained to await trial, although for another crime, if not an uncommon one to presidents – plunder; she would be acquitted later by a Supreme Court whose majority she had appointed.

Meanwhile, Aquino's son, Benigno III, began to preside over what may well have been the best-performing government in a generation. It posted the highest average growth rate, cut the poverty incidence by an impressive 4 percentage points to 21%, and, going by a Social Weather Stations sentiment survey, kept the nation safer from crime than during any other presidential term. Thus, it built for its successor a strong head start – only to be squandered by Rodrigo Duterte.

A compulsive autocrat, Duterte can't wait to bring the whole nation to heel, and makes no secret of his impatient wish. That wish has not been tested in Congress and the Supreme Court, but, for his other dubious causes, he has won the vote in both.

The police are the least of his problems; from the beginning they have been the unquestioning enforcer of his obsessive war on drugs, which has taken thousands of lives in circumstances that have provoked protests from foreign goverments and rights groups. On their part, the armed forces, kept busy themselves pursuing new campaigns against all sorts of state enemy – communists, separatists, terrorists, and sundry outlaws – have been generally obedient.

As for the press, it's been less than its usual boldly adversarial self; in fact, not a few of its practitioners admit to being intimidated. Still, in Duterte's year and a half in office, 4 journalists have been killed in the line of duty, by our own count at the Center of Media Freedom and Responsibility. That may be about as normal as such murders go; indeed, it's a tiny fraction of the 32 journalists among the 58 people massacred in one go in Ampatuan town, Maguindanao province, in the remote south, in 2009. But does that inspire any comfort at all?

The massacre happened under Arroyo's watch, and principally accused for it is a warlord family allied with her. Today, she and Duterte are themselves the closest of allies, along with Estrada and the heirs of Marcos. Together they make up the Philippines' own Gang of Four.

If you don't think that does not gravely multiply the danger the nation – never mind the journalists – is in, you're dangerously off your political math. – Rappler.com

In March 2017, the small nation of El Salvador took a huge step towards protecting its environment for present and future generations when its legislature passed a law outlawing all metals mining. It was a momentous vote – a vote heard round the world.

Indeed, that vote ricocheted across the Pacific to the Philippines, which has emerged as one of the hot spots in the global fight of “water protectors” to end destructive industrial mining. In November 2017, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte surprised many by listening to the call of strong peoples’ movements as he declared that a ban on new open pit-mining would remain in place. This, despite a concerted campaign by the country’s mining interests to end that ban.

The open pit ban is a significant victory for communities across the Philippines, especially in the southern island of Mindanao where groups have waged a decades-long battle to block the construction of what would be one of the largest gold and copper mines in Southeast Asia. And it gives a boost to groups fighting to shut down the destructive mining activities of the very same Australian-Canadian mining giant, OceanaGold, that sued El Salvador in an effort to mine gold there. As a result, OceanaGold has become a symbol of irresponsible mining around the world and a prominent target of global anti-mining movements.

OceanaGold operates the highly profitable and environmentally devastating Didipio open pit mine in the northern Philippine province of Nueva Vizcaya. Since 2013, OceanaGold has funneled some of those profits into its expensive and nasty battle to kick-start mining in the environmentally fragile nation of El Salvador. It was actually OceanaGold that first publicly linked the two countries – through its public relations campaigns that claimed its “green” and “responsible” mining in the Philippines demonstrated it would be a responsible miner in El Salvador.

Instead, that El Salvador-Philippine connection proved part of OceanaGold’s downfall in El Salvador. To counter OceanaGold’s claims of “responsible” mining, water protectors in El Salvador brought Nueva Vizcaya’s governor Carlos Padilla to their country in March 2017.

Since we, the authors, have worked for years in both countries, one of us accompanied Padilla and witnessed the power of his recounting the Philippine story of OceanaGold to Salvadoran audiences. Padilla organized his presentations around a visually-arresting Power Point that featured before-and-after photos of his province’s once lush Dinkidi mountain, a scene strikingly similar to hills of northern El Salvador.

Salvadoran audiences gasped as Dinkidi disappeared and was replaced by a giant open pit that empties into a long dirty gray “tailings pond” with over 100 ghostly, dead trees.

Padilla testified before the relevant Salvadoran legislative committee, met with El Salvador’s president, and shared the Philippine OceanaGold saga to an audience of nearly 1,000 in the province where OceanaGold desperately desired to mine in El Salvador.

In various audiences, the combination of economic, social and environmental violence wrought by mining in the Philippines clearly hit home. As one participant said in response to the Governor’s speech to a large, high-level, multisectoral gathering convened by the Salvadoran government, “there should be a worldwide movement with Dinkidi as a symbol.” Others assembled voiced agreement: “No more, Dinkidi’s!”

Padilla’s visit climaxed on March 29, 2017 with the vote in El Salvador’s legislature for what the New York Times called “El Salvador’s Historic Mining Ban.” The vote was the culmination of a lengthy battle by a Salvadoran coalition of local and national groups, backed by hundreds of allied groups in other countries. Reliable sources informed one of us that when one Congressperson wavered before the vote, another bolstered his “no” vote with “remember what the Governor told us.” Hence, El Salvador became the first country in the world to ban metals mining, both open-pit and underground.

In a meeting with Salvadoran President Sanchez-Ceren right after the vote, Padilla congratulated El Salvador for being ahead of the Philippines on banning mining.

Threats

Now, Padilla is bringing the lessons of the Salvador victory back to the Philippines, where a broad range of Philippine groups, led by two national coalitions – Alyansa Tigil Mina (ATM) and Kalikasan– are strengthening their efforts to evict OceanaGold. We revisited the Philippine mine site in July 2017 (we had been there in 2013 with construction ongoing) to talk to community members about El Salvador’s decisive move to save its key watershed and to witness what had happened to the once verdant Dinkidi area since OceanaGold operations had moved into full gear. 

Community leaders reminded us that the Didipio mine sits at the headwaters of the longest river system in the entire country. Indeed, that river system provides water to millions and key agricultural areas through 4 northern provinces ending in the vast Cagayan River. 

Part of the OceanaGold Didipio horror is visible and audible outside the window of the one room meeting place of a local water protector group. When we visited in 2013, the noise from the round-the-clock machines was deafening. Community members described the torment to them and their children trying to sleep or work or simply live beside the constant noise of crushing and blasting rock. 

In 2017, with the mine operational, we heard shocking stories of water sources drying up in some areas and becoming unsafe to drink in others. Farmers downstream from the mine told us of dead fish, fish losing scales, and of skin diseases on themselves and on the water buffalo they use to farm. 

As for Dinkidi, it was – as in the Governor’s “after” photos – a gaping wound in the once fertile earth. Community members chronicled human rights abuses, including the death of at least two community members that reminded us eerily of the assassinations of anti-mining activists in northern El Salvador. We travelled to 3 of OceanaGold’s so-called “reforestation” projects where the dying, non-endemic saplings made a mockery of the company’s reforestation boasts and awards.

Battle vs vested interests

As the global fight against OceanaGold shifts to the Philippines, farmers and government officials are gathering evidence to build the case that OceanaGold has violated not only provincial laws and laws regarding mining in indigenous lands, but also the precise terms of OceanaGold’s mining concession agreement. This last point is key as OceanaGold’s 25-year Didipio concession agreement is up for renewal in 2019 – a date which offers an important time-frame to eject the company from the Philippines. 

But the fight of water protectors in the Philippines faces a large hurdle that did not exist in El Salvador: vested domestic interests. The domestic mining lobby in El Salvador shrank as mining operations largely ground to a halt during its bloody civil war (1980-1992).  

The Philippines, on the other hand, has a strong business elite tied to mining with roots going back to the construction of mines during the US colonial period over 100 years ago. Hence, mining interests in the Philippines are powerful and tightly linked to top economic and political families. Case in point: the brother of the current finance minister is involved in the consortium behind the would-be Tampakan open pit mine in Mindanao.

Despite these obstacles, the anti-mining movement got a shot in the arm with President Duterte’s surprising 2016 appointment of Regina “Gina” Lopez, a well-respected environmentalist, to be his environment secretary. Before her official confirmation, Lopez moved quickly to open a broad national debate on mining’s devastating impacts. With her motto of “justice delayed is justice denied,” she took decisive steps to audit the 41 large-scale mines across the archipelago to see which were out of compliance with their legal obligations under their mining agreements.

By early 2017, she earned the ire of the mining industry by announcing the ban on new open-pit mining, along with the closure of 22 mines and suspension of operations in 4 more. OceanaGold – already desperate in El Salvador – was among those on the suspension list. All affected mining companies, including OceanaGold, appealed these decisions; all were able to continue operations while their appeal is being considered. But, still, the momentum seemed to be moving against mining.

Alternatives

Philippine environmentalists received a harsh blow in May 2017 when Congress, where several members have mining connections, made its move against Lopez. The Congressional Committee on Appointments voted against Gina Lopez’s confirmation to the environment post.

Despite this setback, the national anti-mining coalitions and local groups have continued the fight against OceanaGold, against the giant Tampakan mine in Mindanao, and against other mining ventures. And these coalitions, working with local groups and provincial officials, understand that part of the challenge in the Philippines is to prove that viable and sustainable alternatives exist, alternatives that can be environmentally, socially, and economically superior to mining.

As in El Salvador, such alternatives focus on agriculture and eco-tourism. Exciting economic alternatives are thriving in Governor Padilla’s province of Nueva Vizcaya. Indeed, just north of where Dinkidi once stood, we toured the fertile Malabing Valley where citrus farmers have blockaded roads every time OceanaGold tries to move its machinery to expand its operations.

The farmers shared with us their work for an economic future free of mining, building on the province’s “green gold” of citrus – and we sampled an array of fresh fruit and citrus wine. We also visited other organic farms producing tomatoes, lettuce, and a wide variety of other vegetables. We spent time at an expanding eco-tourism resort that is creating good jobs while conserving the environment, and we saw the provincial government plans to ramp up such endeavors.

OceanaGold has been stunningly defeated in El Salvador, at least for the time being. The months to come will determine whether it can be defeated in the Philippines by 2019. But however long it takes to win the fight against environmentally, socially and economically destructive mining, El Salvador has demonstrated that the good guys can win. 

No more Dinkidi's. – Rappler.com

Robin Broad, a professor of development studies at American University in Washington, DC, is writing a book about mining as a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow. John Cavanagh directs the Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies. They are co-authors of (among others) Plundering Paradise: The Struggle for the Environment in the Philippines, and have worked in the Philippines over 4 decades.   

In the bloodied streets of Metro Manila, or the flooded villages in Northern Mindanao, Christmas may seem like an unwelcome visitor today, bearing not gifts but bags of burden and bad memories. The past 12 months have not been easy for many of us here and in other parts of the world, that if only we could end the year soon enough and bury it.

Yet, the season is not so much about giving as it is about thanksgiving. It's not so much about the merrymaking as it is about celebrating what others have done for us to ease life a bit, to make things better, to give us hope.

There's logic to why Christmas comes at year's end. It's an annual dose of cheer that we all need in a world made more complex and demanding by our wishes that no longer match its humble beginnings in a manger. It's a constant reminder of the reality that we often fail to see – that the intangibles are enough for Christmas, especially in the toughest of times: family, friends, community; a sense of purpose, a meaning to what we do.

At Rappler, we are grateful for many reasons this season.

For the days when you helped us survive the torrent of hate and scorn.

For the times when you exposed the lies and confronted the fake.

For the grief that you shared so that others may learn.

For the questions you never got tired of asking.

For the passion that you put in the work that you do.

For the acts of courage that you showed as they knocked on your doors.

For the peace that you built in the cities that they seized.

For the wars that you fought to defend the innocent.

For the money that you made that helped people's lives.

For the love that you expressed in small and big ways.

For the blessings that you spread with no expectation of returns.

For the little steps that you've done to make this a more caring world.

And for the year when you chose to stay honest, decent, and true.

Thank you, from all of us at Rappler.

May we all have a meaningful Christmas! – Rappler.com

One could well lose heart in parts of Southeast Asia if all you did is read the headlines, or the social media feeds. The Philippines is a case in point. Even during this nation's holiday season, today’s banner news and trending tweets and Facebook posts from this country tend to magnify the many, not insignificant challenges facing the country.

The ongoing war on drugs, the battle against violent extremists in Mindanao, and the seemingly endemic corruption and enduring poverty that has eroded public confidence in government across presidential administrations are not for the faint of heart.

Solving these problems requires not just the commitment and ingenuity of current politicians, but the engagement of the next generation of civic and political leaders.

Thankfully, the evidence suggests that today’s young generation is no stranger to the innovation that will be essential to rising to the challenge. I had the privilege of witnessing the incredible strides made by young Filipinos firsthand when I participated recently in the graduation ceremony for the International Republican Institute’s Young Leaders for Good Governance Fellowship – a year-long program for local government leaders under 40 years old. I was struck by the enthusiasm and clear vision these young officials had for their cities, municipalities, and country.

A councilor from Ilocos Sur, in the northwest of the country, spoke at length about the need for young people to learn farming techniques from aging farmers in her municipality. Many farmers have contributed significantly to the local economy, but may well retire or pass away before sharing their skills with apprentices. In response to this challenge, this councilor created the “Farmbassadors” program to pair older farmers with unemployed youth to create jobs and foster a more inclusive community.

Disruption can come in many forms. These young people are not content to wait for solutions for their problems to be delivered from the top down. Instead, they are seeking to extend their participation in politics at the same time as the national government prepares to devolve more powers to the local level to enhance public services and better respond to citizens’ needs.

With a Filipino population of some 50 million under the age of 24, the nation’s decision-makers simply cannot afford to neglect the employment, education and social needs of this enormous constituency. Poor economic opportunities, especially outside of “imperial Manila”, are contributing to feelings of disillusionment. This, in turn, may well feed into larger challenges to social cohesion including anti-social behavior, drug abuse, and even violent extremism.

As federalism moves to the forefront of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte administration’s list of priorities, the need to recruit dedicated, energetic local officials presents an enormous opportunity for both the government to engage the young population and for young Filipinos to make their voices heard.

The inclusive implementation of federalism and decentralization policies could provide an important mechanism to address the challenges that disproportionately affect young people in the Philippines. Greater local control over resources and programs would allow representatives to respond directly to the nuanced needs of their constituents.

Decentralization and federalism have the potential to be part of the solution to these challenges. However, if local government officials are unprepared for their changing role, or if the regulatory framework does not effectively integrate independence with accountability, the country could squander this opportunity for positive change. Moreover, if local governments are unprepared for the additional responsibilities, communities are at risk for poorer quality or less reliable services as well as increased vulnerabilities to corruption.

Effective and engaged leaders who invest in building resilience to these risks are crucial to the further development of Filipino democracy. Support from ASEAN and the larger international community can also play a valuable role. As this generation of young Filipinos moves into increasingly important positions of responsibility, political leaders at all levels must seize the opportunities presented by political reforms to build a better country of all Filipinos.

That approach – investing in youth to strengthen governance – is one that could well benefit all of the region’s governments, fully democratic or not. Identifying young Southeast Asian leaders can be the easy part. Our shared, ongoing larger challenge is to invest in and support them. The result will be a stronger region for generations to come. – Rappler.com

Curtis S. Chin, a former U.S. Ambassador to the Asian Development Bank, is managing director of advisory firm RiverPeak Group, LLC. Follow him on Twitter at @CurtisSChin.

After more than a year of torturous debate, TRAIN – or Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion – has finally left the station.

There’s a lot to unpack in the new law. But at its heart lie lower personal income tax rates, offset by higher excise taxes on products like petroleum, tobacco, sugary drinks, and automobiles. (READ: EXPLAINER: What’s inside the bicam-approved tax reform bill?) 

By and large, the law is viewed as a step in the right direction, albeit causing some pain in the short run due to higher inflation. (READ: Will tax reform really hurt the poor?)

But most people probably don’t know that lawmakers were able to insert in TRAIN tax cuts on luxury cars. These cuts will inexorably benefit the wealthy – themselves included – and this could derail some of TRAIN’s original objectives. 

Excise tax on automobiles

TRAIN originally aimed to levy low taxes on cheap cars and high taxes on expensive cars. 

The reason is twofold. First, we need a more progressive taxation of cars, so that richer car buyers will pay higher rates than the rest of us. Second, the revenues will be earmarked to fund projects that aim to abate urban congestion and pollution. 

Table 1 summarizes the proposed changes. The original proposal of the Department of Finance (DOF) (3rd column) features a doubling of both fixed and percentage taxes compared to the current law (2nd column).

Table 1. Note: values in Php

But the DOF proposal was hardly reflected in the final version of TRAIN: The 4th column in Table 1 shows that it includes only percentage taxes, and no fixed taxes. Moreover, percentage taxes for cars above P600,000 are even lower than before.

This is touted to be a “simpler” tax scheme, and therefore easier to collect. Strictly speaking, this is also a “progressive” tax in the sense that tax rates increase with car prices. 

But if we look closer, this seemingly progressive scheme in TRAIN actually has the regressive effect of making expensive cars cheaper (and cheap cars more expensive) than before. Rich car buyers, more than anyone else, will stand to benefit from such tax cuts. 

Regressive impact 

Figure 1 shows the changes in the effective tax rate on cars of different prices. As you can see, there’s a yawning gap between the original proposal and the final law. 

The blue line (original DOF proposal) shows that the more expensive a car, the larger its tax hike. But the orange line (TRAIN) shows that expensive cars – specifically those ranging from P1.7 million to P4 million, and those P7.5 million and above – will actually be levied lower taxes than before. 

For example, cars costing P4 million will have a whopping 21% tax cut under TRAIN. But in the original proposal, they would get a 41% tax hike instead.

Where does this huge disparity come from? The answer lies in the respective versions of TRAIN passed by the House of Representatives and the Senate.  

Figure 2 shows the auto tax provisions passed by the House (green lines) and the Senate (red line).

The House enacted a two-tranche auto tax, featuring tax hikes in 2018 and even larger tax hikes in 2019. Although not quite the same as DOF’s original proposal, the House bill at least moves in the same direction. 

But the Senate version goes completely the opposite way: Cars costing P1.65 million and more will all have tax cuts, and these increase with a car’s price.  

So instead of making expensive cars more expensive (and making rich car buyers pay more), senators want to make expensive cars a lot cheaper (and rich car buyers pay less). 

Christmas gift…for the wealthy

It appears, therefore, that the final version of TRAIN was some sort of compromise between the House and Senate versions (in Figure 2, this is visualized by the orange line lying in between the green and red lines). 

Who’s responsible for this? It’s hard to say. But one could suspect this was the brainchild of senators, who pulled down the tax rates, converted them from tax hikes to tax cuts, and ended up passing a patently regressive auto tax. Senators have much explaining to do.

The winners from this sneaky move are clear: Importers  and luxury car buyers, who often include lawmakers themselves, as testified by the Land Cruisers, Lamborghinis, and Ferraris paraded by the legislators and their kin.

Meanwhile, ordinary Filipinos will face higher taxes for the cars they can afford. A recent TopGear  article (based on the analysis made by the think tank Action for Economic Reforms) summarized the expected price changes for popular models like the Toyota Vios, Mitsubishi Mirage, and Honda City. 

One can argue that a higher tax on these popular models – and the resulting reduction of sales – could help stem the unbridled growth of vehicle ownership which contributes directly to our daily Carmaggedon woes. Toyota already projects“there will be no growth in terms of sales” in 2018; Suzuki foresees a sales reduction of 5% to 10%.

But a progressive tax on cars was supposed to help make TRAIN more equitable. By passing a law that makes expensive cars cheaper rather than costlier, our lawmakers not only weakened the promise of TRAIN, but also benefitted the wealthy (including themselves) at the expense of the Filipino people. 

Let’s pay more attention to the lawmaking process

When President Rodrigo Duterte signed TRAIN on December 19, it was tagged as the administration’s “best Christmas and New Year’s gift” for the Filipino people.  

But as we’ve shown in this article, lawmakers also managed to gift themselves with revisions of the auto tax that run counter to the original purpose of TRAIN. 

Perhaps this a wake-up call for us all to pay closer attention to the details of the lawmaking process. The clincher for the auto tax was the bicameral conference committee, where much of the legislative “magic” usually happens. 

Bothering with the lawmaking processes is admittedly a laborious task, and most Filipinos will be too busy with their everyday lives. 

But the laws Congress makes impact our daily lives in a very real way, and TRAIN was no exception. The least we can do is to pull back the curtain, engage our lawmakers, and hold them accountable for their actions (say, by contacting our representatives or posting about their errant ways on social media).  

Half-baked reforms are no reforms at all. To achieve bold reforms instead, we better step up our engagement in the political process, however difficult that may be. Otherwise, we will continue to be unwitting victims to our lawmakers’ dangerous, self-serving tricks.– Rappler.com

The author is a PhD candidate at the UP School of Economics. His views are independent of the views of his affiliations. Thanks to AJ Montesa (Action for Economic Reforms), Kevin Mandrilla, and an anonymous friend for very useful comments and suggestions. Follow JC on Twitter: @jcpunongbayan. 

Lechon lechon, sinta
Softdrinks, crispy pata
"My Way" ang kinakanta
May paputok sila kuya
'Pag nag-hatinggabi
Sigaw na sa saya
Lahat tumalon pa
Whoo! 2018 na!

Artwork by Alyssa Arizabal
Text by Nile Villa

#FridayFeels is a cartoon series by the Rappler Creatives Team. Cathartic, light, but relevant, it's a welcome break from your heavy news feed! You can pitch illustration ideas by sending a message to the Rappler Facebook page.

Manila is now under pressure after the Japanese embassy expressed concern over a statue to commemorate "comfort women" put up along Roxas Boulevard on December 8. Wartime atrocities, including comfort women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II, continue to mire Japan’s relations with its neighbors, notably China, Korea, and the Philippines. But over time, Japan’s soft power, investments, and overseas aid softened the position of most Southeast Asian countries, including the Philippines. While surviving comfort women became national figures in Korea, their Filipina counterparts have become marginalized and Philippine authorities have become largely indifferent to their legitimate demands for an official apology and compensation from Japan.

As Japan actively seeks to become a normal power and play greater formal roles in the international system, it has to sincerely own up to its past mistakes and refrain from applying pressure on countries simply commemorating part of their history. On the part of the Philippines, good relations with Japan should not come at the expense of forgetting history and disregarding those who have suffered under Japanese occupation. Government, alongside academe, media, and civil society, has a moral responsibility to narrate correct historical facts to its people and establish and preserve monuments that honor those historical episodes.

As our national hero Jose Rizal poignantly said: "Ang hindi lumingon sa pinanggalingan ay hindi makakarating sa paroroonan (Those who do not look back from where they came from cannot reach their destination)."

Narrating facts and thwarting revisionism  

"Comfort stations," as they were euphemistically called, were set up all over Japanese-occupied Asia-Pacific during World War II, attesting to the institutional scale and official sanction of this atrocious wartime practice. To memorialize those who have suffered from this brutality and constantly remind the world about the need to prevent its reoccurrence, comfort women statues had been put up in Korea, China, the Philippines, US, Australia, Germany, and even in Japan. Women’s and human rights groups like Amnesty International, and international organizations like the United Nations have also taken up the issue of comfort women.

Since 1992, Korean comfort women groups and their supporters had been staging protests in front of the Japanese embassy every Wednesday, earning the Guinness Book of World Records title for the longest sustained protest on a single issue. A comfort women statue was also placed right in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul as if to serve as an eternal reminder to Japan to reflect on its past with remorse and contrition. (READ: Japan PM urges South Korea to remove 'comfort woman' statue)

Personal apologies of previous leaders and contributions of private organizations, while recognized, cannot substitute for an official government apology. This sets Japan apart from Germany which has made official acts to commemorate and redress grievances arising from war crimes committed by the Nazi regime in occupied Europe during World War II. Germany, along with 15 European countries and Israel, passed laws to penalize Holocaust denial. In contrast, the lack of a strong and enduring official position on Japan’s role during the war creates openings for historical revisionism. For instance, comfort women were excused as military necessities, and the helpless victims described as volunteers.     

Japan’s opposition to memorials for victims of Japanese wartime occupation only tend to heighten historical grievances, prevent closure, and raise suspicion about the ulterior motives behind Japanese soft power projection. Osaka threatened to sever sister city ties with San Francisco over a comfort women statue established in the latter.

Elsewhere, Japan made representations with local and national governments in countries where similar statues were built or proposed to be built, citing a potential flare up of anti-Japanese sentiments. This is despite organizers ruling this out in the agenda. While Japan and Japanese immigrant groups may have reasons to oppose the memorials as simply Japan-bashing, it cannot confine the way by which countries should memorialize history, war victims, and the perils for women in conflict. This is especially so as Japanese official attitudes towards the war continue to be perceived as insincere and half-hearted. Japanese officials, for instance, continue to visit shrines that also house the remains of war criminals.  

Forgive, but not forget

Filipinos are known as a forgiving people, but are not necessarily forgetful. Predating a marker for comfort women erected in Liwasang Bonifacio in Manila in 2003 was a Kamikaze Shrine setup in Mabalacat, Pampanga, in 1998 despite the tragedy visited by these suicidal pilots and their aircraft to Allied ships participating in the campaign to liberate the Philippines. This attests to Filipinos’ desire for an inclusive and lasting peace. But continued Japanese opposition to the comfort women statue in Roxas Boulevard may trigger unwanted Filipino backlash and may strain the otherwise burgeoning comprehensive bilateral relations. (READ: What's wrong with this statue of a comfort woman?)

Post-war Japan emerged as one of the Philippines' largest donors, investors, and trade partners, and this economic dimension contributed in downplaying wartime grievances. This may have prompted the Department Foreign Affairs to inquire with the City of Manila about the circumstances that led to the establishment of the comfort women statue along Roxas Boulevard, where the Japanese embassy is also located.

But the experience of Korea and China suggests that robust economic interaction need not come at the expense of forgetting the past and denying justice for wartime victims. China and Korea are major trade partners of Japan despite the comfort women issue remaining a thorn in the complicated relations. China remains the largest source of imports for Japan and constitutes Japan’s second biggest export market after US. South Korea is the 4th largest import source of Japan and is Japan’s 3rd largest export market. This principled position accords the governments of China and Korea the dignity and esteem in the eyes of their own people, as well as of Japan. It is no wonder that Korea and China obtained enormous wartime compensation and economic concessions from Japan.

Commemorate, not inspire hate

The comfort women statue along Roxas Boulevard commemorates an undeniable part of Philippine history and reminds mankind of the cruelty of war. That said, the forgiving spirit and maturity of the Filipinos to get over the past will ensure that the statue will not generate anti-Japanese feelings as the previous 2003 marker had shown.

The statue would not change Japan’s image among Filipinos. Japan is the country’s second largest trade partner, key investor, tourist market, destination for Filipino overseas workers, and emerging security partner and these contributions are much acknowledged. (READ: Comfort women: 'Hustisya para sa mga lola')

If Japan is confident about its past, it should not feel insecure and anxious about the statue. Applying pressure on the city of Manila or the Department of Foreign Affairs will only draw more interest to an otherwise low-key historical marker and pushing further may only generate contempt.

President Rodrigo Duterte reacted strongly to efforts of other countries to dangle economic incentives and aid to sway domestic policies and Japan is aware of this. Japan should just allow the Filipinos the liberty to commemorate their history the way they want to, while it continues to do some soul-searching on how to come to terms with its own past. – Rappler.com

Lucio Blanco Pitlo III is a Lecturer at the School of Social Sciences of Ateneo de Manila University and a Contributing Editor (Reviews) for Asian Politics & Policy Journal. The views expressed in this article are his own and do not represent the views of his affiliations. 

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. – Charles Dickens

I am sorry to begin with a cliché. Because sometimes cliches can be true.

Particularly on the national front, it is the worst of times. I never, never thought we would be up to at least 13,000 deaths in a drug war gone amok. I never believed that people would tolerate this with excuses like “it isn’t the President’s responsibility, it’s the rogue police or the drug syndicates.” Within a year, my faith that Filipinos are not capable of Pol Pot-style hatred against each other has vanished.

I was 29 years old when the Marcos dictatorship fell. The Christmas and New Year celebrations that year were glorious. My family, finally relieved of the fear that I and my husband would be detained, tortured or killed at anytime, were joyous. There were more Christmas lights in a metropolis finally relieved of political strife and division. That year and for several years after, when I traveled, people looked up to Filipinos. As history would show, the yellow revolution was the first of many “color revolutions” as nation after nation got rid of dictatorships in a wave of democratization that swept the world. Indeed up to now, South Koreans still use the color yellow in protest as a form of homage to the yellow revolution. I thought my children would never have to confront the same horrors that I, at that time, had spent more than half my life to end. I thought we had learned our collective lesson.

But today, Marcos is given a hero’s burial  and the political restoration of the family is almost complete. Young people everywhere have succumbed to outright lies about what Marcos did to our country. What is worse, Mindanao is under martial law and there is talk of revolutionary government. What is worse is that there is an attempt to return to Marcos governance where all the constitutional guarantees that would have checked the abuses are under threat – the courts, the Senate and the House of Representatives, the independent anti-corruption mechanisms. Hard-won watchdogs like the Office of the Ombudsman and the Human Rights Commission, put in place in the 1986 Constitution because the Marcoses were corrupt and abusive, are threatened too.

Indeed we are back in the time when presidential family and cronies can get away with anything – incompetence, fake news, implication in the smuggling of P6.4 billion worth of shabu, prima facie evidence ill-gotten wealth, the suborning of witnesses – name it, they can get away with it.

My aunt, Senator Eva Estrada Kalaw, was imprisoned twice by Marcos. Today, I visit another woman senator, Leila de Lima in detention. Both were imprisoned on ridiculous charges merely because they dared criticize the sitting president.

These days, the hatred of women has returned with a vengeance, led by a President whose political arsenal is dominated by misogyny, slut shaming, and rape threats. Toxic masculinity floods the national scene. The President’s words are well documented, “kill, rape, kill, rape and putangina.”

Today too, fake news flows from official news outlets abetted by social media that has turned vicious and threatening. Never before has the critic been trolled and threatened so badly. Never before has the distinction between government supporter and government critic become so ignored that all the special protections given to the minority voice in a democracy have been stripped away.

What is worse is that Facebook, which sold us all on its good intentions and democratic potential, has been shown to have participated in the rise of demagoguery and authoritarianism in the Philippines and other countries worldwide. Capitalist greed lives on and refuses to die, stunting people these days at the very moment when they seek to reach out to others.

Instead of democratization, what we have is severe polarization. Our social commonalities are broken and instead of asking “why have our leaders led us to this,” we scream at each other as if it is our fault.

I, who have lived in and loved this country for so long, have become heart broken. 2017. A very bad year.

And yet.

And yet 2017 has been the best of times.

This year the millennials stayed woke. From the stealthy burial of Marcos, in the fight against extrajudicial killings, in the noise barrages against threats to democracy they have been out and about. They surprised the government and the Marcoses with the first huge protests against the burial in the Libingan ng mga Bayani. They have continued in various ways since then. And they are on the right side of history. They have refused the historical revisionism of the Marcos machine, protested every attempt at thwarting democracy, and stood against the mass murder of the drug war.

This year, yet another widow, who thwarted a boy named Ferdinand, has withstood all the assaults turned against her and remains staunch.

This year, protest art has re-awakened. And it is everywhere. From the street plays, to the school performances, to the theater and indie movies. In songs, dance, art and poetry.  It flows again from established artists and young upstarts.

This year, despite unending attempts to thwart good and accountable reporting, ethical media practitioners and ethical mainstream media outlets have flourished. This year, media have shown us what heroes can look like as journalists of all stripes continue to bring us the truth. They are at the front lines reporting the war in Marawi, the drugs war deaths, the corruption, the incompetence. Against fake accounts and bots, there remain real people giving out real information.

This very year, when things have turned so horrible, is also the year of the push back against this evil. Everywhere, people are reiterating their intense commitment to the right to life, to the equal treatment between rich and poor, to their allegiance to fair play, due process, and democracy. Everywhere too, the true sense of compassion of Pinoys calls for more humane treatment  even of the demonized drug addicts. It is compassion that has seared forever in the national psyche the picture of a poor young woman holding her bloody and dead husband in a forlorn street. It is our compassion that exploded upon the death of Kian delos Santos in a massive outpouring of grief.

This is the year when large swathes of the population said, “Threats and trolls and claims to popularity will not stop us from standing up for what is right.” Many have said, “I stand, even if alone, even at great threat, for what I believe is right.” And they were not alone.

And on a personal note.

This year, I turned 60. The age conscious may find that tragic but I have had a blast.

I am thankful for my senior citizen card and for every indication that there remains a strong current of respect for the elderly. This too is proof of our compassion and our commitment to each other.

But beyond the privileges, I am thankful for what age brings.

This old bird has risen to the challenge yet again. My knees hurt more and the rallies are increasingly difficult for me physically, but I am there. I have not forgotten the lessons of the anti-dictatorship struggle and bring to this new threat some very well-tested tactics and strategies. Only age will tell you which truths are long-standing. Only age will tell you whether the fire-in-the-belly that causes you to care comes only from the excess energy of youth or the wellspring of real passion that will be your life’s message. The Man may have all his power now, but this woman won’t give up. And as before, what I cannot overcome, I will undercome!

I look around me and there they are – most of the old birds are back on the street. The old camaraderie is back. A camaraderie born of common principle more than old ties. I have met many new friends this year who are older persons. These new but older comrades have enriched me.

This time, I am the older person stunned by the wonderfulness of the young. How beautiful their boundless energy. How inspiring their bravery to take the world and begin to make it their own. What wisdom is this that commits to the age-old principles when an apathetic life would probably be better in the shorter term? Sometimes I wish to apologize for giving them a world that is so horrible. For failing to make it better. But they do not care about these sentimental nonsense. The world is theirs as it is. And they are going to work it. And then I am assured that those things I care for deeply will live on and this is what matters more than the personal contribution I have made.

We are marching together, the old and the young. And because this movement is about love of the unknown other, we are learning together. The old teaches what it has tested through time. The youth retests and validates or rejects. Each one brings new and wondrous things to the table. This is what makes it a struggle and a movement. This oldie has come to realize that change comes from an undaunted creative force that plays and discovers. This is why the movement that will overcome is not the movement of lies, polarization, control and blood-letting. 

Proper aging inevitably brings the long view and that is always a hopeful one. All things change and this turn towards the worse will turn again towards the better. I know this. And I have been around long enough to know that this could happen in 2018.

Or change may not happen yet. But then I will meet this new year knowing that it is yet another year on the path towards a better me and a better nation. And, as it was in 2017, it will be a year of struggle in joy, laughter and solidarity. – Rappler.com

Sylvia Estrada Claudio is an old activist. She has been in social movements since she was 13 years old. And she loves the Philippines.